Wrapping up NingJS

We reflect on the two-day developer-driven JavaScript Conf China, including photos, lessons learned and more

NingJS happened the first weekend of September and it was awesome. We took over the city of Nanjing and JavaScript devs were everywhere. This was the 5th edition of JS Conf China with previous years’ conferences taking place in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen. Since JS Conf China is community driven each year we ask for feedback and support from the community on picking the location, and suggested topics. Each year gets bigger and better.

NingJS in Numbers

Highlights from NingJS

More companies reimbursed their staff to attend this edition of JS Conf than previous years.

5 out of 25 projects presented were listed on Github Trending during NingJS.

Alexandre Strzelewicz from PM2 made his GridControl GitHub repository public to the whole world during his 20min presentation at NingJS.

Alibaba open sourced their eggjs framework during NingJS Conf.

The question “What do you think of NingJS?” became one of the most heated questions on Zhihu (a very well-known Q&A website in China). Over 106 people answered this question, including several speakers from the Conf - James Kyle from Facebook, Kevin Ngo from Mozilla, 天猪 from Alibaba, 严清 from Teambition etc.

Behind the Scenes of NingJS

Four months before the event

Conferences don’t come together over night, and this conference wouldn’t have ever gotten out of the idea stage if it wasn’t for our amazing NingJS team.

After many trips back and forth between Shanghai and Nanjing, checking venues, negotiating prices for the venue, lunches and accommodations to keep the conference affordable for devs everywhere, things were starting to pull together on the logistics side of NingJS.

The team worked hard on finding the best speakers and sponsors and trying to make the ticketing process work as smoothly as possible. If all of this wasn’t enough the team got together to tackle the Wifi problems of hosting large events. All while we were trying to contain our excitement for getting the JS community together for the 5th year in a row!

One day before the event

NingJS finally arrived and the whole team (literally everyone in Shanghai) arrived in Nanjing at noon on September 2nd to help get this conference ready. After having a quick lunch, the team gathered in the lobby of the hotel to have a quick briefing on the layout of the venue, the two-day schedule, contact persons and everyone’s tasks (check-in table, Wiredcraft table, info table, etc).

Getting the Goods together

We ordered 800 tote bags to give away to the attendees, and these bags had to be packed with the amazing giveaways including stickers, pamphlets from sponsors, lunch tickets, raffle numbers, and so much more. Our job was to make sure all this swag made it into every tote bag. In true startup fashion, emphasizing efficiency and productivity, we created a pipeline to prepare the swag.

NingJS

Check-in process was smooth. The Wiredcraft and other sponsor tables were packed with people during the breaks. In addition to the 19 speakers and table discussions, the community participated by giving 14 lightning talks over the two days and lucky draw prize winners took home some great gifts including Chromecasts, bluetooth earphones, keyboards, and much much more.

Both days included after parties for the attendees, and we had over 600 people attend.

Improvements for the 6th edition

Since we are a community driven conference we do our best to get feedback from the community during the event as well as after the event. Here are some things that we think we, as event organizers, can improve on for the 6th edition.

Improve the visibility of the side screens. We should make sure during site checks to see how the visibility for the audience is. As the lower part of the screen was difficult to see from most of the seats.

Improve language accessibility. Provide English/Chinese supplements to the slides, so that it’s easier for all audience members to follow along regardless of language proficiencies.

Try collecting t-shirt sizes when ticketing to do a better job at ordering the proper sizes.

Find an after party location that can support more people. The location was too small, and although we had fun there wasn’t much space to sit down. We can bring more of the conference lifestyle and culture to the after party by having material to commemorate the best moments of the day or bring some kind of communion there (eg. people loved the group picture in the end).

When scouting the venue, keep in mind the venue sponsors table locations. We can make sure that the locations are more even, as some sponsor tables end of an alley.

If you have any feedback you’d like to share you can email the JS Conf team at [email protected].

See you next year!

We’re really excited to finish up the final touches on NingJS and getting ready for next year. Slides are on the NingJS website and videos are available to watch on the NingJS website.

Thank you to all the participants, sponsors and speakers for supporting the JS community in China, we look forward to seeing you at next year’s JS Conf China. Be the first to know about 2017 JS Conf China by subscribing to the Wiredcraft blog.

Conference season in China isn’t over yet, in just a few short weeks Wiredcraft is organizing the biggest design event in China the UI/UX Conf. Look forward to seeing you all there.

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